Hi all,

I've booked my flight from London to Denver already (AA). I have subsequently started an air miles account. Is it too late to claim the air miles for my trip or can I get the miles when I check in?

Cheers,
Mel.

No, it is not too late. Call now and have them add your AAdvantage number to your reservation. Also ask about signing up for a Gold Challenge, where you can qualify for Gold status based on fewer flight in a shorter amount of time. I don't know all the details, but would guess London to Denver would put you a good ways towards meeting the challenge.

You can give them the FF number when you check in. It's not too late. Even after the trip, you would still be able to get the miles.

Give your # when you check in. I would save the boarding passes after just in case. You can fax those in if they don't credit your account.

For a business trip a couple years ago, my plane ticket was booked through my company's travel department. I realized after the trip was over that my frequent flyer account was not credited for the flights. I called the airline to see what to do. The agent looked up my recent travel history and saw that I had taken the flight and not received miles so she added them right then. I didn't have to fax any paperwork in or anything.

That might be so with some airlines, but not with AmericanAirlines.Even the most elite status if you for whatever reason are not credited with your trip miles,proof via paper is their rule.Regarding the Gold/Platinum challenge.Unless you are a very frequent traveller,you will not rack up the miles.Most challenges are based on a 90-day period.For the normal casual traveller elite status on any level has no real meaning.Denver-London is a great start,but more mileage would have to be added.In addition, the status level would have to be maintained,once achieved.

I hate to disagree with you, BeachBoi, but I am an AA ff member. Twice I have not been credited with flights -- once it was just one segment omitted, and once it was the outbound flight to California from Florida that was omitted even though they credited the return. In both cases, a phone call did the trick. They looked them up and credited me immediately. However, car rental or hotel stays are another matter. Sometimes I've sent copies of bills, waited, and had to resend them to get the credits.

The best advice you've received so far is from Traveler, who suggests calling AA right now to have your AAdvantage number added to your flight record. Have the record locator number handy when you call. Then when you check in, provide the number again to make sure it is entered. While it's true that you can recover miles for past flights for a period of time by providing documentation that you were an FF member prior to taking the flight and that you took the flight, you're just asking for potential hassles by proceeding in that fashion. These problems are almost always completely avoidable by doing the right thing ahead of time instead of trying to recover credit later. Call AA and take care of it right now.

Gee, Flyboy, I hope you realize that we all agree that is the best solution -- or at least I agree. This other conversation was just in reference to "in case" it didn't get credited, which can always happen. I certainly didn't mean to imply that melr should not call AA now to confirm the FF number.

I was just underlining what I would regard as "best practices" in my post. It wasn't meant to be any kind of negative reference toward any of the other posts.

Just to add to what has already been said, many of the airlines now send statements either quarterly by snail mail or monthly or quarterly by email. Many of the frequent flyer programs that I belong to give you so many days from the receipt of the statement to review it for errors (uncredited miles). You should, therefore, save your e-tickets, paper tickets and boarding passes until you've received the statement and reviewed it. That way, you still have the evidence in case an airline requests that you mail it in. The same would hold true for any credit cards that are affiliated with frequent flyer programs.

I forgot to mention that in advance of receiving email statements directing you to the website to check your frequent flyer miles, that you can check most of the airline's frequent flyer programs online in advance of receiving the statement. Just keep your frequent flyer number and password handy.

Thanks all for your replies. I'll try and phone AA next week (if I can find a UK number for them!)

Cheers,
Mel.

I'll repeat to keep your boarding passes. That seemed to be the most important thing they wanted when I was requesting my miles.

Definitely keep your boarding passes until you know your account has been credited. If the airline didn't credit you, then you have to provide your boarding pass(es) or a photocopy of same.
Also, I just had a experience where we flew on Alitalia and in order to get the Delta miles (which they hadn't credited), I also had to send in a copy of the e-ticket because it was a partner and not Delta.
PS: We did get credited.
From experience, it's much, much easier to give the FF number when you make reservations, then double check when you check in, both ways!